The Church’s Integrity in the Trump Years

The Church’s Integrity in the Trump Years

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Image: Daria Kirpach / Salman Art

The Church’s Integrity in the Trump Years

It begins by recognizing the name above every name.

Mark Galli| December 30, 2016

We’re having to write this two months before Inauguration Day. But one doesn’t need the gift of prophecy to project that Christians will divide over the new administration. Each side, in an attempt to support or challenge an unprecedented and tenuous administration, will inevitably find itself at odds with others. Some Christians will call for eternal vigilance, looking for signs that the new president is promulgating yet another injustice. Others will be tempted to defend his every move. Inevitably, the rhetoric will drift toward the apocalyptic and remain mired in the partisan, and the name that will continue to be above every other name will be Donald Trump.

“Love your neighbor” means we all are called to engage in our nation’s public life in one way or another. But when cultural engagement leads to ecclesial divorce, something has gone seriously wrong. More than ever, we evangelical Christians are finding it hard to live under the same roof. When asked about the family, we sneer, “We’re not like those Christians, those hardly worthy of the name.” Some have even filed for divorce with the evangelical adjective.

Can we then be mystified when news pundits and social media mavens identify us only by our allegiance to—or repudiation of—this king or that, instead of the King of kings? Some Christians have claimed that the evangelical vote for Trump has set back the cause of the gospel 50 years. Others are equally sure the gospel would have been set back by a different election outcome. One wonders if our raised fists and ugly rhetoric directed at brothers and sisters is the real scandal.

The early Christians took a decidedly different approach, under a regime that is ...

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